Disney To Move Star Wars Comic Books To Marvel

What comes as no big surprise and something that was inevitable when Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise.  Disney has announced that it will not renew its Star Wars comic book rights with Dark Horse Comics but instead be making them in house with Marvel Comics which Disney owns.  This is an end of an era as Dark Horse Comics has been making Star Wars comic books since 1991.  Marvel which had the rights before from 1977 when the first movie came out will now be producing Star Wars comic books sometime in 2015.  

Here is what Marvel Worldwide Publisher and President Dan Buckley had to say about the announcement.

"We here at Marvel could not be more excited to continue the publication of Star Wars comic books and graphic novels. The perennial brand of Star Wars is one of the most iconic in entertainment history and we are honored to have the opportunity to bring our creative talent pool to continue, and expand Star Wars into galaxies far, far away."

Dark Horse Comics owner Mike Richards sent out this letter about the announcement.

The End of an Era

All things come to pass. So too, do all licensed deals. I am sad to report that Disney, the new owner of Lucasfilm, has notified us here at Dark Horse of their intention to move the Star Wars publishing license to another of their recent acquisitions, Marvel Comics, beginning in 2015. This will end a partnership that has lasted more than two decades.

For those who are new to the industry, Dark Horse revolutionized the treatment of comics based on films. After a history of movie properties being poorly handled with little regard for execution and continuity, Dark Horse took a new approach, carefully choosing licenses and approaching them with excitement and creative energy. Our goal was to create sequels and prequels to the films we loved, paying careful attention to quality and detail, essentially treating those films as though they were our own. Star Wars has been the crown jewel of this approach. We began chasing the title as far back as 1989, and with the launch of Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy’s Dark Empire, a new era in comics was born. I’m not ashamed to admit that we were Star Wars geeks, and we have been determined to spare neither effort nor expense in the pursuit of excellence.

It is ironic that this announcement comes at a time when Dark Horse is experiencing its most successful year ever. For obvious reasons, we have prepared for this eventuality by finding new and exciting projects to place on our schedule for 2015 and beyond. Will they take the place of Star Wars? That’s a tall order, but we will do our best to make that happen. In the meantime, 2014 may be our last year at the helm of the Star Wars comics franchise, but we plan to make it a memorable one. We know that fans of the franchise will expect no less. The Force is with us still.

So Star Wars has a new home in 2015 to coincide with a new movie and a new era for Star Wars has begun.

Star Wars Weekends Poster

Here is the first of many Disney created Star Wars items we will see.  This is a promo for a planned event but the idea that Disney would not mix their existing characters with the Star Wars universe has gone out the window.

Disney CEO Bob Igor Confirms Star Wars Spinoff Movies

Could popular Star Wars characters be getting there own movie.  Could we be seeing Yoda, Boba Fett, and Chewbacca starring in their own feature film. Well that possibility is now closer to reality as Bob Igor Disnet CEO has confirmed in an interview yesterday on business channel CNBC.  This is exciting news for Star Wars fans as we are now getting a new trilogy and stand alone films.

More Disney - Star Wars Details

Some more details about the deal from aintitcool.com

1) Disney now owns all Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and ILM (the company that once owned Pixar), as well as the trademark for "Android" or "Droid". Disney will now own all intellectual property rights with some distribution and licensing exceptions based on existing deals, much like how Universal still has the Marvel theme park license for a while yet.

2) Much was made of Disney's global licensed product and distribution reach making better use of LucasFilm licenses, with all emphasis on the $4.05 billion paid being relative to the value of the Star Wars franchise. For example, this would imply that any Star Wars (and Indiana Jones?) licensed comic books will now go under Marvel once the current Star Wars/Dark Horse contract ends, and video games would go through Disney Interactive.

UPDATE 1:: Bob Iger: "We're likely to focus more on social and mobile than we are on console. We'll look opportunistically at console, most likely in licensing rather than publishing, but we think that given the nature of these characters and how well known they are, and the storytelling, that they lend themselves quite nicely, as they've already demonstrated to the other platforms"

3) Disney plans to release a new Star Wars movie every 2-3 years starting in 2015. All of them will be in 3D.

4) Star Wars Episodes 7, 8, and 9 will be a trilogy. The treatment is done, is in "early stage development", and the movies are to be released every other year.

5) ILM will remain a studio-agnostic gun for hire. Disney does not want to change anything about how they operate.

6) Fox retains ownership and distribution of all existing Star Wars movies (until that contract expires...?). All future films will be distributed solely by Disney, unlike Paramount retaining partial distribution rights when Marvel was acquired. No mention was made of who now owns the Star Wars Holiday Special.

This leaves us with tons of questions.  Will there be a new Indiana Jones?  What about the planned Star Wars live action series? What will the next Star Wars trilogy be about?  And so on - very exciting news for sure!!

Source - http://www.aintitcool.com/node/59381

Lucasfilm to be bought by Disney

It has been announced today that Disney will be buying Lucasfilm for a cool $4.05 billion. Disney has been purchasing a number big companies over the last decade, including Marvel Comics for $4.2 billion in 2009 and Pixar for $7.4 billion in 2006. It has also been announced Star Wars Episode 7 will be released by Disney in 2015, with further films released every two to three years.